"Frank, don't ask too much at once. I'm here because I am. We have just landed. I left Emmeline on the pier with the custom officers and came to you immediately. Say you're glad to see me—my old Frank!"
"But, but—" he stammered.
"Yes, I know what you are thinking. I was engaged for the Paris Opéra—" "Was?" he blankly ejaculated—"and I couldn't stand it. Locatéli—" "Who?" "Locatéli. You remember him, Frank, my old teacher? He got me into the Opéra and he got me out of it." "Do you mean that low-lived scamp who gave you lessons here, the man I kicked out of doors?" She flushed. Etharedge stared at her. He was near despair. His dream of an artistic life on the Continent was as a bubble burst in the midday sunlight. He loved his wife, but the shock of her unheralded arrival, the hasty ill-news, proved too much for this patient man's nerves. So he transposed his wrath to Locatéli.
"Well, I'm damned!" he blurted, kicking aside the chair and walking the floor like a caged cat. "And to think that scoundrel of an Italian—" "Frenchman, Frank," she interposed—"that foreigner, who ought to have been shot for insulting you, that Locatéli, followed you to Paris and mixed up in your affairs! And you say he had you pushed out of the Opéra? The intriguing villain! How did you come to see him?"
"He gave me lessons in Paris." "Locatéli gave you—Lord!" The man was speechless. He put his hand to his forehead several times, and then gazed at his wife's hair. She fell to sobbing. "Frank," she wailed, "Frank! I've come back to you because I couldn't stand it any longer—it was killing me. Can't you see it? Can't you believe me? No woman, no American girl can go through that life and come out of it—happy. It made me sick, Frank, but I did not like to tell you. And now, after I've thrown up a career simply because I can't be your wife and a great artist at the same time, your suspicions are driving me mad." Her tone was poignant. He looked out on the harbor as another steamer passed the Statue bound for Europe.
"Ask Emmeline!" She, too, followed the vessel with hopeless expression and clasped his shoulder. "Oh! Sweetheart, aren't you glad to have me back again? It's Edna, your wife! I've been through lots for the sake of music. Now I want my husband—I'm not happy away from him." He suddenly embraced her. Forgotten the disappointment, forgotten the fast vanishing hope of a luxurious life, of seeing his dream—Paris; forgotten all in the fierce joy of having Edna with him forever. Again he experienced a thrill that must be happiness: as if his being were dissolving into a magnetic slumber. He searched her eyes. She bore it without blenching.
"Are you my same little Edna?" "Oh, my husband!" There was a knock at the door; an office boy entered and gave Etharedge a letter which bore a foreign stamp. She put out her hand greedily. "It will keep until after dinner, Edna. We'll go to some café, drink a bottle of champagne and celebrate. You must tell me your story—perhaps we may be able to go to Paris, after all." "To Paris!" Edna shivered and importuned for the letter until he showed it. "Why, it's mine!" she exclaimed. "It's the letter I wrote you before we sailed." "You said nothing about it when you came in?" He put it in his pocket and looked for his hat. She was the color of clay. "It is my letter. Let me have it," she begged. "Why, dear, what's the matter? I'll give it to you after I have read it. Why this excitement? Besides, the address is not in your handwriting." He trembled. "Emmeline wrote it for me; I was too busy—or sick—or—" "Hang the letter, my dear girl. I hear the elevator. Let's run and catch it. This is the happiest hour of my life. An 'intermezzo' you musicians call it, don't you?" "Yes," she desperately whispered following him into the hall, "an intermezzo of happiness—for you!"
Suddenly with a grin the man turned and handed her the letter: "Here! I'd better not juggle with the future. You can tell me all about it—to-morrow."
And now for the first time Edna hated him.